Top Ten Reasons Why This Was The Worst Decade Ever
Top Ten Reasons Why This Was The Worst Decade Ever
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“It’s funny how the colors of the real world only seem really real when you viddy them on the screen.” – Alex
First off, what do we even call this decade? The zeros? The Aughts? The New Millennium? Secondly, this decade had a terrible start. Most people forget that we had two Wall Street Crashes during this decade. The NASDAQ hit an all-time high of 5049 on March 10, 2000. Peep it today.
Then we got wacked by 9/11.
This was followed by a retarded war in Afghanistan, a farce in Iraq, Enron, a stupid hick in The White House, WorldCom, Anthrax, and DC snipers, the Terminator getting elected, Hurricane Katrina, Asian Tsunami of 2004, median household income dropping, obesity skyrocketing, police state, more terrorist attacks, school shootings, Detroit, and another financial crash.
Weesh.
These are all pretty bad, but here are the Top 10 Reasons why this was the worst Decade ever:
Hip-Hop
Hip-Hop had its worst decade yet. The cats putting out the best music this decade were the same cats from the 90’s. Jay, Nas, Wu, Mobb Deep, AZ, Eminem, etc. Is there any doubt that Biggie and Tupac would have been the biggest stars out there today if they didn’t pass?
Boxing
Boxing was afflicted (and I don’t mean those gay Affliction Shirts either) with the same disease as Hip-Hop: a rehashing of 90’s stars. De La, Trinidad, Vargas, Sugar Shane, Bernard, Arturo Gatti, Roy Jones etc. Where are the 80’s babies? The only two fighters that made huge trax in the New Millennium that didn’t in the 90’s were Manny Pacquiao and Money Mayweather (both 70’s babies).
We can all look forward to them fighting in 2010.
Hurricane Katrina
I could think of many better cities for a “natural disaster” to ruin than New Orleans. LA perhaps? Orange County, maybe?
We really don’t have that many great cities in America. Why did Katrina have to wreck one with great Gentleman’s Club’s, smoking in bars, 24 drinking and Crab Maison, Shrimp Maison, Shrimp Remoulade?
9/11
9/11 sucked for many reasons. But one of the main reasons it sucked was it turned plane travel into a major pain like Damon Wayans. And it was low down dirty even, like his brother Keenan, Scheming.
This really affects the International Playboy and anyone who likes to swoop mad fly girls all across the bubble.
George Bush
I still can’t believe we elected this hick twice.
Then I look at a map of our country and I understand.
Bruce Jenner
No one has captured the essence of this decade better than Bruce Jenner.
When I was born, there wasn’t a baby G in the land that didn’t think Bruce Jenner was cool. He was like a pseudo super hero. Sure, I liked Roberto Duran, Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Jim McMahon way more, but Jenner was smooth. Just recently, on a hungover day, I caught the cat on TV. I was shocked.
He is now a plastic surgery, tranny looking, beta male. Went from first to worst. Kind of like America.
No smoking
The “no smoking” movement really caught speed during this decade. Thousands of years of tradition of smoking, drinking and swooping fly girls flushed down the toilet.
And the craziest thing is the only one who seems to care is your humble author.
Another direct attack on The International Playboy lifestyle.
Bottle service
Along with “no smoking” laws, Bottle service has all but ruined Nightlife. Read here: Bottle Service: America’s Nightlife Nightmare
Reality TV
I don’t really care about television, but you have to see these annoying people when you roll out at night. Just like school on a holiday. Whatever happened to shows like All in The Family? And people with style and taste?
Men’s Style
Where do I even start on this one? Trucker hats, shiny shirts, multicolored striped shirts, designer jeans, rhinestones, Affliction, Ed Hardy, Christian Audiger, tight jeans, glitter?
Can it really be called “Men’s Style” anymore?
Give me a Custom Suit and a Zippo.
And a heron spike to ease the pain.
Technology
The incredible efficiency of Web-based communication and our Google-fueled appetite to know everything about everything (or everyone) right now are combining to make Tiger Woods the canary in the privacy coal mine. Expect personal privacy — or rather its continued erosion — to be a hot media topic of 2010.
If I see another person “twittering” on their IPhone at a bar or trying to film, I am going to slap it out of their hand. And shove a rocks glass in their mouth. Word life.
All in all, what we did this decade is change Main Street for Wall Street, Mom and Pop for Wallmart, and small farms for Factory Farms.
To the ruin of us all.
Keep the toaster in the shoulder holster; things are going to get interesting.
America is in a bad need of a rebirth, a renewal, and a rediscovery.
(And by “bad need”, I mean like a person who has been hit over the head with a Louisville Slugger is in bad need of a band-aid, some ice and a nice lie down.)
An American Renaissance (if you will) will be the only thing that will save us.
(Or you can just split. I am posting this poolside from the Caribbean).
The Rest is Up to You…
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK, Jr.
AKA The Sly, Slick and the Wicked
AKA The Voodoo Child
The Guide to Getting More out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com
YEARNING FOR YOUR LOVE – GAP BAND
12/12/2009 at 5:00 pm Permalink
Hey G,
Good stuff. I never thought about it this way, cuz for me it was a good decade but you’re right… twas bad.
I always thought that the 80’s was the worst decade, if only because of the music.
12/12/2009 at 6:49 pm Permalink
this is my fav. post u ever made, im with u..
i dont think hip hop brought the best music this decade though, but i do agree its the same guys putting out the good shit though
13/12/2009 at 12:59 pm Permalink
Don’t worry the “American Renaissance” is coming…. Looking forward to your “Best of 2009” awards…. Bruce Jenner???……he let “Hollywood” and those Kardashian girls take his manhood away….Weak move Bruce. America will be back!
13/12/2009 at 3:14 pm Permalink
Gringoed,
Yeah, my decade was great too.
I guess the main question you need to ask is “Are you better off now than 2000?”
My answer is “Yes”.
– MPM
13/12/2009 at 3:14 pm Permalink
scott,
Word up.
– MPM
13/12/2009 at 3:16 pm Permalink
Gio,
“Looking forward to your “Best of 2009″ awards”
Me too.
Need to bust those out.
I should be ready when I get back from the Caribe.
Recharging batteries. Getting mad shoulder rubs from island girls.
– MPM
14/12/2009 at 10:30 am Permalink
Mike,
Amazing post. I’ve been absent minded in terms of regularly reading the manifesto but was able to spend considerable amount of time while oversea’s relaxing to catch up. All time classic.
In the past you’ve talked admirably about the movie Cocaine Cowboys. Curious as to your take on “The U” documentary produced by Billy Corben regarding the rise of the Miami Hurricane’s football program.
http://30for30.espn.com/film/the-u.html
Check it out.
Throughout the 1980s, Miami, Florida, was at the center of a racial and cultural shift taking place throughout the country. Overwhelmed by riots and tensions, Miami was a city in flux, and the University of Miami football team served as a microcosm for this evolution. The image of the predominantly white university was forever changed when coach Howard Schnellenberger scoured some of the toughest ghettos in Florida to recruit mostly black players for his team. With a newly branded swagger, inspired and fueled by the quickly growing local Miami hip hop culture, these Hurricanes took on larger-than-life personalities and won four national titles between 1983 and 1991. Filmmaker Billy Corben, a Miami native and University of Miami alum, will tell the story of how these “Bad Boys” of football changed the attitude of the game they played, and how this serene campus was transformed into “The U.”
Personal Statement
In 1980, three dangerous fronts collided in Miami. The explosion of public violence from the Cocaine Wars, the influx of thousands of criminal Cuban refugees during the Mariel Boatlift and deadly race riots following the acquittal of Miami-Dade police officers who beat a black insurance salesman to death.
Long before hip hop superstars and thug culture filled our airwaves, shopping malls and iPods, the Miami Hurricanes brought street values and hood bravado into America’s living rooms. If the ’Canes didn’t invent the end zone celebration dance, they certainly popularized and perfected it.
By the late 1980s the Miami Dolphins were no longer capturing the collective imagination of South Florida as they once had. The Hurricanes had become Miami’s team. My team. I remember my father paying 10 bucks to park on somebody’s front lawn and then following the crowd a couple of blocks to the Orange Bowl. I remember watching these young warriors emerge through that smoke to the bloodcurdling roar of Miami football fans. They were not the steeped-in-tradition choirboys of Notre Dame, but they were our hometown heroes: diverse, brash and dangerous. Just like the city of Miami itself.
They spoiled us with national championships: 1983, 1987, 1989, 1991. And then a fifth in 2001. We literally expected to win a national title every year. Beano Cook called the ’Canes “the greatest dynasty since Caesar,” and he was right. I watched this team, over the course of a generation, pump out some of the most thrilling, controversial and brilliant players in football history: Jim Kelly, Michael Irvin, Vinny Testaverde, Cortez Kennedy, Warren Sapp, Jerome Brown, Jessie Armstead, Ed Reed, Bernie Kosar, Clinton Portis, Jeremy Shockey, Jon Vilma, the list goes on.
This is my team. The team that forever changed how football was played—and most certainly put the “nasty” into dynasty.
Billy Corben Bio
Billy Corben was born in Florida and graduated from the University of Miami where he majored in political science, screenwriting and theater. His feature documentary directorial debut, “Raw Deal: A Question of Consent,” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2001, making him one of the youngest directors in Sundance history. Examining the alleged rape of an exotic dancer at a fraternity house at the University of Florida, the film utilized extensive clips from videotape footage of the alleged assault. Considered by critics to be “one of the most controversial films of the modern day” and “one of the most compelling pieces of non-fiction ever produced,” (Film Threat Magazine), “Raw Deal” has been seen all over the world.
Following that success, Corben and producing partner Alfred Spellman founded rakontur, a Miami Beach-based content creation company, and took on another Florida true-crime story, this one closer to home. The New York Times called “Cocaine Cowboys” “a hypervent-ilating account of the blood-drenched Miami drug culture in the 1970s and 1980s.” The film tells the story of how the drug trade built Corben’s native city of Miami through firsthand accounts of some of the most successful smugglers of the era and the deadliest hitman of the cocaine wars.
After a limited theatrical release in 2006, “Cocaine Cowboys” became a worldwide success on DVD. The sequel, “Cocaine Cowboys 2: Hustling with the Godmother,” was released in 2008. The 2010 slate for rakontur includes a “Cocaine Cowboys” dramatic series for HBO, with executive producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay and the feature documentaries “Square Grouper,” examining the free-wheeling pot smuggling era of South Florida in the 1970s, “Dawg Fight,” a brutal expose on underground backyard MMA fighting in one of Miami’s toughest neighborhoods, and a new installment of their hit documentary series: “Cocaine Cowboys: Los Muchachos.”
14/12/2009 at 12:49 pm Permalink
I feel you on most of this.
And I also think this is one of your best posts. Funny stuff, without trace bitterness. You are showing your age though, not that I think it a bad thing. After all, there really is no substitute for experience.
15/12/2009 at 12:38 pm Permalink
G-
Found your site awhile back from some of your comments on Roissy’s blog, and I’ve been enjoying it. Appreciate your efforts to raise the sartorial standards of the American male.
Yeah, thinking back, this decade was a complete letdown. So much promise at the beginning only for everything to fall apart. I started writing out my own list of why this decade sucked, only to look up 30 minutes later to see it pretty much just mirrored yours. Props.
15/12/2009 at 5:39 pm Permalink
RayRay,
Haven’t seen the U yet, been too busy getting back rubs from island girls.
But I am aware of it.
I am sure I will check it soon.
– MPM
15/12/2009 at 5:40 pm Permalink
Mala,
I have found the fountain of youth.
– MPM
15/12/2009 at 5:41 pm Permalink
L Dub,
“Appreciate your efforts to raise the sartorial standards of the American male.”
Yeah, its pretty much a loss cause at this point, but it is fun to diss.
“I started writing out my own list of why this decade sucked, only to look up 30 minutes later to see it pretty much just mirrored yours.”
Great minds…
– MPM
15/12/2009 at 6:04 pm Permalink
NEW AZ- Maybe this will be a new indicator of things to come in the next decade.
AZ-Im Ill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUkBCXkuzo0
15/12/2009 at 10:13 pm Permalink
Not to mention the transition into digital existence together with the rise of lowlife acronyms,
“OMG wtF Did y0ur X juSt BefRiend me on FaCebk”
17/12/2009 at 1:31 pm Permalink
Great decade for crime though. Crime just keeps getting better.
Expect more heists, more art thefts, and more relevations from every day ‘ordinary joe’ who turns out to be a jewel thief.
17/12/2009 at 1:33 pm Permalink
I’m looking forward to seeing how the drug wars in Mexico pan out.
Yet more and more 13-16yr old texan kids becoming hitmen.
At $50,000 for a high profile target, getting paid in cash, cars and cocaine, I can see the allure.
17/12/2009 at 5:05 pm Permalink
Seph,
Good point.
That stuff is beyond low end.
– MPM
17/12/2009 at 5:07 pm Permalink
Dinnertime Bandit,
“Expect more heists, more art thefts, and more relevations from every day ‘ordinary joe’ who turns out to be a jewel thief.”
Agreed.
Crime has however become way less “gentlemanly”, but this has been going on for many decades.
Drugs ruined the criminal world.
– MPM
17/12/2009 at 5:08 pm Permalink
“I’m looking forward to seeing how the drug wars in Mexico pan out.”
Me too.
They seemed to have cooled a little bit.
I made a journey into Mex a few weeks back. First time in a while.
– MPM
17/12/2009 at 7:48 pm Permalink
One reason for the next decade to jump-off right: Use Cash. MPM, I know you have been an advocate since, well, since you start folding bills.
http://www.usecashmovement.org/
18/12/2009 at 8:24 am Permalink
The 4 Horseman of the Decade
1. Critics became “Haters”
2. Credit Cards replaced Cash
3. Nobody is allowed to fail or make mistakes
4. Reality Television
18/12/2009 at 6:41 pm Permalink
Justin and Chris,
Like 99% of all issues with the USA has fucked up, Americans fail to recognize what the real problem it, because it certainly cannot be them.
The reason why you have problems with credit cards is Americans are greedy glutinous pigs. Both the credit card companies, and the every day American as well. Just because you can make those initial payments on a $700,000 house doesn’t mean you should get it. Whoever thought 0% down, floating point mortages were a good idea was mistaken, let alone a whole country.
Americans are greedy, overconsume, have no culture and are unable to recognize or admit when they’re at fault.
As for Mexico’s drug war, Fox was ready to sign the legistration that passed through parliment, decriminalizing soft drug usage in exchange for much tougher laws and tools that could be used to fight the cartels. Bush owed too many favours to the mid-fucking-west bible thumpers and he got on the phone in his trademark my-country-has-problems-but-I’ll-tell-other-countries-what-they-should-do-before-fixing-up-the-issues-at-home got on the phone and pressured Fox to not sign the bill. Look what happened. Next year Mexico had 5,700+ drug-related murders. What a fucking asshole. During his presidency you heard more in his speeches about Iraq and Afghanistan than you would about the USA. What country are you running now, buddy?
In short, you guys generally are greedy, cultureless assholes.
18/12/2009 at 6:49 pm Permalink
not the most factual article, the economist had a much more comprehensive one sometime in 2006, but for those who wish to read more about a 3rd (recent) country the USA and its overbearing presence played a part in ruining: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,194552,00.html
19/12/2009 at 11:27 am Permalink
Hey asshole (obvious truth),
For one, I’m Canadian…bud!
Secondly, I don’t own a credit card, therefore I am free of any credit card problems.
Thirdly, I’ve grown up on three different continents and have had the privelage of experiencing various cultures, enriching my view of the world.
Lastly, I do agree with you that not just Americans but people in general, are greedy and fall into the debt trap.
“Here’s a ho, and another ho, Merry Christmas.”
19/12/2009 at 12:10 pm Permalink
Michael,
Another thoughtful piece. There are some who would argue that Boxing (Beat- or the Sweet Science) have no bearing on society’s outcomes, but your analysis of the socio-political environment is, unfortunately, spot on. The economics of our country have mirrored it’s socio-political decline since the election of one southern CA based actor/idjit was elected to public office – and I don’t mean der Terminator. The complete gutting of government controls and regulations has turned the US into a cash cow for the big boys and turned the majority (those who put your man W into place) into a disrespected, wasted mass of angry, fundamentalist, selfish boors. The concept of “no taxes and limited government” is a political ruse by the haves to get over on the have-nots. Low taxes remove resources from the public benefit (education for instance) and the “trickle down” effect so widely espoused from the ’80s through today has proven to be nothing more than what George HW Bush called “Voodoo Economics”.
“The fish stinks from the head” is an old-country, old-family saying that describes a void of leadership: our culture has removed itself from the community center to the community bank, counting its few pennies while buying on the cheap, investing irrationally for a quick pop while leaving the rest to fend for themselves. Anger and sadness are the order of the day, and until our “leaders” understand that investment in US infrastructure (roads, bridges, hospitals, water-purification etc.), education (look at the Brits, French, Canadians, Japanese, Germans), and US business (we don’t manufacture much these days but Mexico, Asia, Turkey, S. America, and E. Europe send us their goods. Our jobs have been exported to China, India, Mexico etc. US fabric mills are gone, US glassmakers are gone, US cars suck and have been supplanted by Japanese and Germans – who won WWII?) and people (healthcare – see the rest of the industrial world), we are destined to become a shadow of that greatness that was the US. This republic won’t last more than 70 more years anyway, so tearing it down now will just hasten the natural process (no new Republic has ever lasted more than 300 years).
Peace and tequila,
Laz
20/12/2009 at 10:11 pm Permalink
I enjoyed your post and I think you are spot on with your assessment of this decade. Thanks for opening everyone’s eyes, especially about the downfall of the nightworld.
21/12/2009 at 11:12 am Permalink
OK, got to argue one point, hopefully won’t derail…
George W. Bush WAS a complete fuck, but look at who was on the other side…
We could certainly say politics has been downhill, but that’s been true for almost a century now, in a visible way. (Prior to that it was more occult, but still in an inevitable decline.)
Other than that, I don’t know jack about Hip Hop (Mostly by choice), but I can’t argue with the list.